


A Bitter Breeze

by luvsanime02



Series: Delete Winter [7]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is so tired of regretting his decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bitter Breeze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



**Disclaimer:** I don’t own Shingeki no Kyojin. That honor belongs to Isayama-sensei. I’m making no profit off of this fic.

########

 **A Bitter Breeze** by luvsanime02

########

Levi cursed.

He looked around the two small rooms that made up his office and wondered what the hell to do with the information he’d just found out. When Levi had left the police force five years ago, he hadn’t known exactly what he was going to do next. His only goal had been looking for his niece, but he’d still known that he’d need contacts and ways of finding out information in order to accomplish that task.

He still hadn’t found her yet. It was like she’d completely disappeared after her parents were murdered and their cabin was set on fire. He’d thought that maybe she’d died too, but the lack of any child-sized remains documented in the case report that Levi had hacked into implied otherwise. No, Levi was sure that Mikasa was alive out there somewhere. He just needed to _find_ her.

She was the only blood relative he had left, now that his younger brother was dead. Once again, Levi felt a wave of self-loathing for not talking to his brother for three years before he’d died. He could barely remember what their fight had been about in the first place.

Well, no, that was a lie. They’d been fighting about family, of all the ironic things. His brother hadn’t approved of Levi going into the police force, to put it mildly. Levi still remembered the flushed face, screaming at him. _How can you even think about this?! Damn it, those fuckers have hunted us down one by one until we’re all that’s left! We’re all that’s_ left _, Levi and now you’re just going to turn your fucking back on everything we’ve been through?!_

Levi could still hear the echo of his brother’s voice. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t understood his brother’s anger. Levi hadn’t ever forgotten having to work shitty jobs during school just to afford a crap apartment they could cram into together. Sometimes he still had nightmares about the night Uncle Kenny had woken them up and ordered them to flee before he’d been gunned down.

It wasn’t that Levi had forgotten who he was and what his family used to be. It was just-

He’d felt like he’d owed it to them, to Farlan and Isabelle, to work himself through the program and become a police officer.

Back then, Levi hadn’t wanted to defend his actions to his brother. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d been wrong. Levi had, in a sense, chosen something (or two someone’s) over his own family and their history.

So, he’d walked out of his brother’s house and never looked back, never even tried to call. His brother had stayed silent on his end too, had continued being a doctor and had never tried to contact Levi again.

And now his brother was dead, and Aiko, who _had_ tried to call Levi several times over those years, only he’d always deleted her voicemails without listening to them, and Mikasa was missing.

How old would she even be now, anyway? Levi was completely startled to realize when he consulted a calendar that the answer was fifteen. Fuck, really? He was getting too old for this shit.

He wouldn’t stop now, though. Couldn’t. Levi had left behind his work as a detective, had basically given up on his promise to Farlan and Isabelle, in order to search for his niece. Just because it was taking longer than he’d expected (too long, far too fucking long) didn’t mean that he was going to quit.

He’d regret that decision forever, he knew without a second thought.

Still, even though he’d quit his job and started up his own small business as a private investigator, that didn’t mean that Levi had forgotten completely about the officers he’d worked with at the precinct.

If his information was correct, his old partner was in danger.

Fuck, why hadn’t he looked into this earlier in the week?

Because he was tired. After years of looking and discovering nothing again and again, Levi was finally getting tired. He wasn’t quitting, but he was sick of searching through every little scrap of information and following every lead, and always, always finding nothing.

Wherever Mikasa was, Levi didn’t know, and every day now he tried to ignore the voice growing louder in the back of his head that said that he was never going to find her. He was going to fail at keeping her safe, was failing, had been failing for _years_ , just like he’d always failed everyone closest to him.

Fuck that.

Levi still remembered what Mikasa looked like, his smiling, happy niece, with her tomboyish clothes and her hair in pigtails. He had a small school picture of her in his wallet. It’d arrived in his mail one day years ago with no return address, but his name had been written in Aiko’s familiar hand. She’d always been better than both he and his brother deserved.

So no, Levi wouldn’t forget Mikasa, and he sure as hell wasn’t giving up on her, but looking at the information in front of him had Levi considering for the first time letting his search for his niece take the backseat for now as he focused on other cases.

Like his previous partner getting into more shit than she could handle.

Petra Ral was a decent detective. Levi hadn’t minded working with her. She’d understood that Levi was going to do his own thing, and let him, and backed him up when needed. And now she was nosing around some drug ring that knew a cop was involved. Maybe they didn’t know who the undercover officer was yet, but Levi knew that it was only a matter of time before they discovered who she was.

Petra could handle herself, true, but not if she was completely unaware of the danger of them specifically looking for her. Levi had already filed an anonymous tip with her precinct, but he knew how slow some officers could be in sorting through that information, and Petra might not have that kind of time.

Cursing again, Levi stood up and locked his office for the night. He’d have to drive awhile to reach where Petra was, but there was no help for it. Levi couldn’t just leave her to be blindsided like that when he might be able to prevent her from getting hurt.

Levi only hoped he could arrive in time to save at least one person that he cared about.


End file.
